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1,000 on apartment waiting list
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So how tough is it to find an affordable apartment in Manteca?

Readers inquiring at Manteca’s only workforce housing complex — Juniper Apartments on Atherton Drive east of Van Ryn Avenue — said they’d been told there are nearly 1,000 people on the waiting list to get into one of the 153 units.

The $29 million project was built in part using $13 million in redevelopment agency funds. The city no longer can use RDA funds to leverage such projects after Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Legislature pulled the plug on RDA to balance the state budget a few years back instead of slashing the state bureaucracy.

The rents for the apartments are capped at a set percentage of the median income for workers in the Manteca market. It was the first housing project in Manteca targeted for workforce needs and not low-income families or low-income seniors. The subsidy is essentially through lower financing costs for the project made possible through redevelopment fund and tax-exempt loans designed to boost affordable housing opportunities.

An apartment in Manteca isn’t cheap, assuming you can find one. Five complexes are now charging more than $1,000 for a one bedroom, one bathroom unit.

 

Mini-bikes race

on bike path

Youth on motorized mini bikes who have been run-off private property in Manteca over the years have found a new place to race their machines — the Atherton Drive bike path between Woodward Avenue and Van Ryn Avenue.

Three pre-teens were riding them on Sunday up and down the stretch of asphalt.

While they were courteous to bicyclists, joggers, and walkers on the route one of them went “off-road” and left his marks in the landscaping bark and dirt.